Played Valkyrie Profile on PS1, and it was an instant hit for me. It provided me a lot of first time experience, i.e. Norse mythology, game with multiple ending, clever platforming puzzles, deep lore, and end game content. A true masterpiece in its era! I only wish they have released this on switch.
As sad as it is, the thing that i remember most about this game is that hard mode is easy mode and easy mode is hard mode, Tri Ace makes some bizzare gameplay design choices because levels mean nothing and a lv1 character using hard mode equipment is better than a lv99 character using normal mode equipment. Also to everyone who wants to play this game even if its just to play the main story: PLAY HARD MODE!!!
Yeah, I just went normal (didn't know about all the extra stuff when I started). Curious to see what the Hard mode weapons and dungeons are like, though. At least I got ending A.
The highlight for me is learning the backstory if the characters, not the main storyline. The main storyline is nice yes but having depth and knowledge of what happened to the characters makes the game so much more fulfilling
I played Valkyrie Profile on release and it became an instant favorite. In fact I can say without hesitation that it is my favorite game of all time and I re-play it about once a year or so, generally on Hard. I never get tired of trying new teams and if anyone reads this it's worth noting that there is a "practice" menu item so you can dial in your combos as you adjust your team and their movesets - HF mentioned everyone has up to three attacks depending on gear, but you can also change the order they come out to whatever you like. Also the Exp. Orb that banks XP you can then spend on your squad as needed - critical for Hard difficulty. I actually pretty much 100% agree with this review and think an objective score of 75% is pretty fair, if not a little generous, despite my subjective taste. Something about it just works for me, warts and all. I still use a checklist for Ending A just because there's quite a bit to it, even if I do remember most of it. The annoying thing about it given that it leans so heavily into the unexplained Seal Rating is that only by getting on the A route do any of the pre-requisites make sense and suddenly it clicks what it is and why certain people have to go up in order to set up the right interactions. Frustrating, but such a satisfying series of events. Real shame about the most recent entry in the series if it can even be called that. Valkyrie Profile: Hrist never ever. And just to cap off this novel of a comment: The DS SRPG VP:Covenant of the Plume is also excellent and a really unique blend of a sort of FFT/TO grid based system with the button/combo/finishers elements of VP.
LR Final Fantasy XIII gameplay mechanics are very very similar to Valkyrie Profile. Limited time, during fights each button maps to a specific character/style with their own attributes. Playing LR: FFXIII I eventually said, "this is Valkyrie Profile".
Needing guides to not miss anything is and was always a trouble in JRPGs. Along with reminding me of the difficulties and somewhat broken usability/experience your review now just made me giving up on replaying the game after so many years even though I bought it a few weeks ago. 😅😅 After all I still have quite a few rpgs I haven't started playing yet. 😢
Was going to say that Wow that Arngrim guy really looks a lot like Guts. But then I bet everyone says that already. I'll try something different. Your voice is really good for this. Very contagiously enthusiastic.
It is almost guaranteed to not get ending A on a first playthrough, but it is possible to do it. I myself will recommend to play the game with a guide to reach ending A too as the differences between the endings will make it feel like there are 2 different games being played. Also there's very little reward to do so without one as it AT FIRST is obscure. How is it possible to reach ending A without a guide? Not unlike you said, to reach it by accident the player needs to first notice the Valkyrie's seemingly useless attribute, the SEAL VALUE (from a gameplay perspective). Then the player must notice (and document) the actions that make it change, which is going to certain places, witnessing stuff and other "obligations" since she's following orders of Freya, Odin and other gods. Basically the player then need to notice the events that lower the Seal Value and then try to lower it as much as they can. So in essence, just lower the seal value and you'll get ending A! But to notice it, document what affects it and be determined to lower this Seal Value completely blind, may take boredom and a handful of playthroughs.
Valkery profile is amazing jrpg every one who love jrpg must give it a try ,still you must play the first on hard mode to explore all donjons and play with all characters, ) (available just on hard mode)+ dont miss valkery profile 2 !! My second best jrpg ever made 👌 what a magnificent game 10/10 .( Top3 jrpg all time 1 dragon quest 8 3ds version , 2- valkery profile 2 , 3- xeno blad one switch)
If I ever play it again, I'll definitely do it on Hard mode. But then there are also a few exclusive Easy mode dungeons too. Some great replayability here. Looking forward to playing VP2
@@HellFireRPGs if you have a pc gamer you can play it on pcsx2 emulator with 4k texture pack 👌 you will be amazed how the game is beautiful with texture mod
The short character vignettes felt disjointed to me. There were some interesting stories that never got fleshed out, or you saw a character once or twice before they were added to your party, and never heard about them again.
@@HellFireRPGs The sequel has less of a focus on the einherjar, and they're basically just throw-away characters to fill party slots, or to grind for sending off for equipment for better members, but overall I liked that game so much more with a more focused narrative and an amazing cast of characters. Valkyrie Profile 2 is one of my top three PS2 games, next to Tales of the Abyss and Suikoden V. Exist Archive on PS4 is also a decent follow-up to the Valkyrie Profile games. The game feels like tri-Ace started work on Valkyrie Profile 3, and Square-Enix wouldn't let them do it, so they used what they had and reworked it with new characters and a super limited budget and took it to a different publisher. I wouldn't call it a good game, but I still enjoyed my time with it, if that makes sense.
Great review! Not sure if you're aware, but the PS1 and PSP versions of Valkyrie Profile have different cinematics. The PS1 version went for an anime style, whereas the PSP version is the version you played, with the 3D rendered cutscenes, which I personally found to be better.
Yeah it helps 4:19 to know of pacing issues which yeah I'm glad Elysium went on sale (bs how it seems physical can't upgrade but digital normal can) to enjoy prologue at least, as you can't be in a mood for something fast to play this. Just tedious seeing masterpiece thrown around the second there is a positive feature of a popular game. 5:02 skip the gameplay watch cutscene vids like tactics ogre reborn lol glad people do heavy lifting nowadays with the power of good editing.
This game is definitely an acquired taste. I love the game now but I definitely had a hard time getting into when I first played it in the early 2000´s. I think you gave it a fair score, but subjectively this is like a 85-90% game for me. VP1 and VP2 are Tri-Ace best games imo. to me VP1= flawed masterpiece and VP2= Masterpiece.
Hard mode was the easiest one for me (except dungeon riddles for which I used a guide), normal mode gave me PTSD (I went for the A ending. Bloodbane I hate you, ugh!). The atmosphere and collecting souls of Einherjar is really something else, so is the combat system and graphic style. Too bad that they ditched that style in "Silmeria".
Access to the best weapons and armour mainly, but also somr extra characters. You're way more limited on easy mode, making that the hardest in some ways.
It looks like a moving painting when upscaled via emulation... one of the the most beautiful JRPGs ever made! Interestingly enough, the advertising for the game looked like that.... I believe they developed on PC but had to drop the quality for PS2. They should really re-release on PC with the resolution boost. Though seeing how half-baked some "remasters" are it would be sad if it turned out worse than the emulated version. lol
I first played the game in 2009 when on the search for non-standard RPGs. I was SO tired of all the leads being brain-dead teenage boys, so I asked around for something different. Then someone asked, "You like silver-haired smart chicks? Do I ever have the game for you."
Follow a guide and you'll be right. A couple of the late bosses are hard, but if you follow a guide, you'll have the best equipment and most of the game will be a cake walk.
Just play on Normal difficulty first time around; it's honestly really not that difficult. I'd even say don't bother with Ending A the first time around. You can always look up the requirements and cut a separate save file off from the Point of No Return. One thing HF didn't mention is the "Experience Orb". Earned XP, plus bonus XP earned from events are all banked into it and you can tap in at any time to powerlevel for essentially free. Since every recruit starts at-level with you on Normal it's great for topping up if you feel a little under powered or need just a few more SP for a skill upgrade. (And on Hard it's the primary way to get desirable recruits up to speed)
One must remember that Valkyrie Profile was made during a time when most didn't feel like they had to rush through life. And more so a younger audience was playing compared to now, so things could take their time and animation sequences for special attacks were rewarding instead of being seen as cumbersome. I think it says something if JRPG remasters are being given options to fast-forward or 2X speed. It seems like the wrong genre to be involved in if time is precious. Still a better experience to the correction meant to be the reboot. I've seen more play this in streams than when Elysium came out.
That's so true. I remember happily watching all of the GF sequences in FF8, over and over and over again. And EDEN! Damn, that animation went for over a minute!
Not necessarily, even back then I remember some jrpgs being criticized for their sluggish animations. Like spell and summon animations are cool the first handful of times but having to watch lengthy ones over and over again throughout a 60+hr game is going to lose it's novelty eventually
@@kyler247 They can, but sometimes I ad the option to skip. Often times you'd get complaint about turn-based itself in wanting to battles to be faster as they felt the same, then it turned to it needs to move on from turn- based. It was the push to streamline games.
![Top 30 Best RPG Games for PS1 [Recommendation]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/77tqVe6S9qY/mqdefault.jpg)
This is a top three jrpg to me. So many heartbreaking moments
Played Valkyrie Profile on PS1, and it was an instant hit for me. It provided me a lot of first time experience, i.e. Norse mythology, game with multiple ending, clever platforming puzzles, deep lore, and end game content. A true masterpiece in its era! I only wish they have released this on switch.
As sad as it is, the thing that i remember most about this game is that hard mode is easy mode and easy mode is hard mode, Tri Ace makes some bizzare gameplay design choices because levels mean nothing and a lv1 character using hard mode equipment is better than a lv99 character using normal mode equipment. Also to everyone who wants to play this game even if its just to play the main story: PLAY HARD MODE!!!
Yeah, I just went normal (didn't know about all the extra stuff when I started). Curious to see what the Hard mode weapons and dungeons are like, though. At least I got ending A.
@@HellFireRPGs can you do tales of eternia
1:16 to my side, my noble one hair jar! Lol
We need a VP Silmeria port!
The highlight for me is learning the backstory if the characters, not the main storyline. The main storyline is nice yes but having depth and knowledge of what happened to the characters makes the game so much more fulfilling
My all time favorite game. A masterpiece in every sense.
I played Valkyrie Profile on release and it became an instant favorite. In fact I can say without hesitation that it is my favorite game of all time and I re-play it about once a year or so, generally on Hard. I never get tired of trying new teams and if anyone reads this it's worth noting that there is a "practice" menu item so you can dial in your combos as you adjust your team and their movesets - HF mentioned everyone has up to three attacks depending on gear, but you can also change the order they come out to whatever you like. Also the Exp. Orb that banks XP you can then spend on your squad as needed - critical for Hard difficulty.
I actually pretty much 100% agree with this review and think an objective score of 75% is pretty fair, if not a little generous, despite my subjective taste. Something about it just works for me, warts and all.
I still use a checklist for Ending A just because there's quite a bit to it, even if I do remember most of it. The annoying thing about it given that it leans so heavily into the unexplained Seal Rating is that only by getting on the A route do any of the pre-requisites make sense and suddenly it clicks what it is and why certain people have to go up in order to set up the right interactions. Frustrating, but such a satisfying series of events.
Real shame about the most recent entry in the series if it can even be called that. Valkyrie Profile: Hrist never ever.
And just to cap off this novel of a comment: The DS SRPG VP:Covenant of the Plume is also excellent and a really unique blend of a sort of FFT/TO grid based system with the button/combo/finishers elements of VP.
Tri-Ace absolute mastercipiece.
beautiful series
Great review got the mobile version just now…looking forward to see how it is as this will be my very first JRPG game played🎉
3:58 Glad I'm not the only one who found this strange. Lawfer's recruitment scene in particular ends jarringly sudden.
LR Final Fantasy XIII gameplay mechanics are very very similar to Valkyrie Profile. Limited time, during fights each button maps to a specific character/style with their own attributes.
Playing LR: FFXIII I eventually said, "this is Valkyrie Profile".
Needing guides to not miss anything is and was always a trouble in JRPGs. Along with reminding me of the difficulties and somewhat broken usability/experience your review now just made me giving up on replaying the game after so many years even though I bought it a few weeks ago. 😅😅
After all I still have quite a few rpgs I haven't started playing yet. 😢
Was going to say that Wow that Arngrim guy really looks a lot like Guts.
But then I bet everyone says that already.
I'll try something different.
Your voice is really good for this. Very contagiously enthusiastic.
Haha, you're the first person to say that.
And thanks for the compliment! Glad you enjoyed :)
@@HellFireRPGs I almost can't believe that. Well its true. You could make even bad games sound appealing.
Top 3 rpg from childhood for sure. Suikoden/Valkyrie Profile and for the sake of not sounding cliche, Beyond the Beyond. You never forget your first.
It is almost guaranteed to not get ending A on a first playthrough, but it is possible to do it.
I myself will recommend to play the game with a guide to reach ending A too as the differences between the endings will make it feel like there are 2 different games being played. Also there's very little reward to do so without one as it AT FIRST is obscure.
How is it possible to reach ending A without a guide? Not unlike you said, to reach it by accident the player needs to first notice the Valkyrie's seemingly useless attribute, the SEAL VALUE (from a gameplay perspective). Then the player must notice (and document) the actions that make it change, which is going to certain places, witnessing stuff and other "obligations" since she's following orders of Freya, Odin and other gods.
Basically the player then need to notice the events that lower the Seal Value and then try to lower it as much as they can.
So in essence, just lower the seal value and you'll get ending A! But to notice it, document what affects it and be determined to lower this Seal Value completely blind, may take boredom and a handful of playthroughs.
Valkery profile is amazing jrpg every one who love jrpg must give it a try ,still you must play the first on hard mode to explore all donjons and play with all characters, )
(available just on hard mode)+ dont miss valkery profile 2 !! My second best jrpg ever made 👌 what a magnificent game 10/10 .( Top3 jrpg all time 1 dragon quest 8 3ds version , 2- valkery profile 2 , 3- xeno blad one switch)
If I ever play it again, I'll definitely do it on Hard mode. But then there are also a few exclusive Easy mode dungeons too. Some great replayability here.
Looking forward to playing VP2
@@HellFireRPGs if you have a pc gamer you can play it on pcsx2 emulator with 4k texture pack 👌 you will be amazed how the game is beautiful with texture mod
Thanks. Will do.
The short character vignettes felt disjointed to me. There were some interesting stories that never got fleshed out, or you saw a character once or twice before they were added to your party, and never heard about them again.
Agreed. I wish more characters at least had some dialogue after you recruit them.
@@HellFireRPGs The sequel has less of a focus on the einherjar, and they're basically just throw-away characters to fill party slots, or to grind for sending off for equipment for better members, but overall I liked that game so much more with a more focused narrative and an amazing cast of characters. Valkyrie Profile 2 is one of my top three PS2 games, next to Tales of the Abyss and Suikoden V. Exist Archive on PS4 is also a decent follow-up to the Valkyrie Profile games. The game feels like tri-Ace started work on Valkyrie Profile 3, and Square-Enix wouldn't let them do it, so they used what they had and reworked it with new characters and a super limited budget and took it to a different publisher. I wouldn't call it a good game, but I still enjoyed my time with it, if that makes sense.
Interesting. People have been raving about VP2 so it will be good to see what all the fuss is about.
Great review!
Not sure if you're aware, but the PS1 and PSP versions of Valkyrie Profile have different cinematics. The PS1 version went for an anime style, whereas the PSP version is the version you played, with the 3D rendered cutscenes, which I personally found to be better.
Thanks!
Yeah, I found out after looking some things up after releasing the review. Will have to go back and compare the two.
Thanks for your honest review. This game looks like it would frustrate me. I'm gonna pass.
Cheers mate. Fun game, but definitely not for everyone.
Yeah it helps 4:19 to know of pacing issues which yeah I'm glad Elysium went on sale (bs how it seems physical can't upgrade but digital normal can) to enjoy prologue at least, as you can't be in a mood for something fast to play this. Just tedious seeing masterpiece thrown around the second there is a positive feature of a popular game. 5:02 skip the gameplay watch cutscene vids like tactics ogre reborn lol glad people do heavy lifting nowadays with the power of good editing.
This game is definitely an acquired taste. I love the game now but I definitely had a hard time getting into when I first played it in the early 2000´s. I think you gave it a fair score, but subjectively this is like a 85-90% game for me. VP1 and VP2 are Tri-Ace best games imo. to me VP1= flawed masterpiece and VP2= Masterpiece.
I think I like it more this time around than I did back in 2000. And I keep hearing amazing things about VP2. Looking forward to playing it.
Hard mode was the easiest one for me (except dungeon riddles for which I used a guide), normal mode gave me PTSD (I went for the A ending. Bloodbane I hate you, ugh!).
The atmosphere and collecting souls of Einherjar is really something else, so is the combat system and graphic style.
Too bad that they ditched that style in "Silmeria".
Oh yeah, those end game bosses made me sweat a little. Massive difficulty spike right there.
I hear VP2 is great, though. Will give it a go later.
How is hard mode easier?
Access to the best weapons and armour mainly, but also somr extra characters. You're way more limited on easy mode, making that the hardest in some ways.
@@HellFireRPGs i didn't get very far(at the 1st dungeon) so i might start over on hard mode after i make a bit more progress in one piece odyssey
Yeah, definitely don't go easy as you can't get ending A.
The sequel have amazing graphics and push the system to it's limits but cut out the souls mini stories segment. Sigh.
its actually quite a pleasant ride with a guide on hard mode and the post game dungeon is really fun as well.
It looks like a moving painting when upscaled via emulation... one of the the most beautiful JRPGs ever made! Interestingly enough, the advertising for the game looked like that.... I believe they developed on PC but had to drop the quality for PS2. They should really re-release on PC with the resolution boost. Though seeing how half-baked some "remasters" are it would be sad if it turned out worse than the emulated version. lol
Looking forward to playing that one soon :)
👍🤘✌️❤️
I first played the game in 2009 when on the search for non-standard RPGs. I was SO tired of all the leads being brain-dead teenage boys, so I asked around for something different. Then someone asked, "You like silver-haired smart chicks? Do I ever have the game for you."
This is one game I really want to try, but its difficulty scares me
Follow a guide and you'll be right. A couple of the late bosses are hard, but if you follow a guide, you'll have the best equipment and most of the game will be a cake walk.
Just play on Normal difficulty first time around; it's honestly really not that difficult. I'd even say don't bother with Ending A the first time around. You can always look up the requirements and cut a separate save file off from the Point of No Return.
One thing HF didn't mention is the "Experience Orb". Earned XP, plus bonus XP earned from events are all banked into it and you can tap in at any time to powerlevel for essentially free. Since every recruit starts at-level with you on Normal it's great for topping up if you feel a little under powered or need just a few more SP for a skill upgrade. (And on Hard it's the primary way to get desirable recruits up to speed)
One must remember that Valkyrie Profile was made during a time when most didn't feel like they had to rush through life. And more so a younger audience was playing compared to now, so things could take their time and animation sequences for special attacks were rewarding instead of being seen as cumbersome. I think it says something if JRPG remasters are being given options to fast-forward or 2X speed. It seems like the wrong genre to be involved in if time is precious.
Still a better experience to the correction meant to be the reboot. I've seen more play this in streams than when Elysium came out.
That's so true. I remember happily watching all of the GF sequences in FF8, over and over and over again. And EDEN! Damn, that animation went for over a minute!
Not necessarily, even back then I remember some jrpgs being criticized for their sluggish animations. Like spell and summon animations are cool the first handful of times but having to watch lengthy ones over and over again throughout a 60+hr game is going to lose it's novelty eventually
@@kyler247 They can, but sometimes I ad the option to skip. Often times you'd get complaint about turn-based itself in wanting to battles to be faster as they felt the same, then it turned to it needs to move on from turn- based. It was the push to streamline games.